Society's Child
The saying "the worm has turned" refers to the moment when the downtrodden have finally had enough, and turn on their powerful oppressors.
The worms have finally turned against the privileged elites -- who have benefited so greatly from globalization, corruption, central bank stimulus and the profiteering of state-enforced cartels. It doesn't matter as much as the punditry assumes whether they are turning Left or Right; the important thing is that the powerless have finally started challenging their privileged overlords.
Though the Powers That Be will attempt to placate or suppress the Revolt of the Powerless, the genies of political disunity and social disorder cannot be put back in the bottle. It took a generation of rising inequality, corruption and the erosion of opportunity to create a society of the protected (the haves) and the unprotected (the have-nots), and rubber-stamping more regulations and distributing Universal Basic Income (UBI) will not rebalance a system that is irrevocably out of balance.
But the rise of resistance, as yet nascent, is only half the story: economic trends and cycles are turning as well, and even if the worms remain passively underground, these reversals will disrupt the status quo. The dominant narrative--the rightness, goodness and sustainability of endless growth of consumption and debt--will unravel, and the internal contradictions of this New Gilded Age (widening wealth/income/power inequality) will finally burst through the thin façade of stability that's been patched together over the past nine years of "recovery."
Fifty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., his struggle for peace lives on.
When most people think of the great man, born Michael King on January 15, 1929, they see an advocate for peace, who is celebrated by the US government - honored every year in January, on the third Monday. However, what the government tells us and what this great man did are two separate stories - especially when it comes to gun rights.
Dr. King's position as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement began after his election as spokesman for the Montgomery Improvement Association in December of 1955. What also started in that December of 1955 was the FBI's investigation into him.
Like all those who stand against government-sanctioned violence, Dr. King was an enemy of the state. The fact that he's celebrated today by the same state that persecuted him is quite Orwellian. Equally as Orwellian is the fact that his death was used as the cornerstone for gun control in the United States.
What few people know, however, is that King was pro-gun. Many people believe that since King was such an outspoken advocate for peace that he didn't believe in the rights of others to protect themselves. This is wrong.
The owners of a tactical supply company were violently arrested and then detained for hours with no explanation while their home was raided by a SWAT Team and their assets were seized - but the evidence used against them by police had nothing to do with alleged illegal activities.
In an exclusive interview with The Free Thought Project, Sarah Leach said that she and her husband, Andrew, were ambushed and detained by police for more than 13 hours before they finally received an explanation for their arrest. The evidence the officers claimed to have against them came in the form of a previous error made by state police and a stack of papers that contained detailed screenshots of posts from their social media accounts.
"The raid was a result of two things, according to the Riverside Sheriff's Investigator who interviewed me after having detained me for 13 hours without charges; the fact that they were aware that California Highway Patrol had seized, and then given back to us, high capacity pistol magazines to the prior year, something they are calling an error on CHP's end. More disturbing were the stacks of printed pages from my social media accounts, particularly those things which criticize police and government overreach, police violence, my personal ideologies regarding self-governance and the inalienable rights we are afforded as human beings, and even memes and jokes they found, as parts of evidence to request a search warrant, including posts of a very subjective and ironic nature."
Le Figaro labelled the strike "the railroad battle," while Le Monde wrote in worried tones that
"Train, airplane, and garbage workers once again have energy." It continued: "A number of sectors have been affected by a strike movement launched Tuesday, April 3. Their grievances are numerous within each category: Reform of the SNCF for railroad workers, demands for wage increases for Air France workers."The SNCF expects the strike call to be followed widely. It anticipates that only one in eight high-speed TGV trains will run across France and only one in five regional trains. Initial reports indicate that eight in ten conductors are following the strike. Up to a third of flights will be cancelled today and electricity maintenance and garbage pickup will be limited as sanitation workers, electricians and gas workers halt work.
Le Parisien is concerned that the strike "will be very widely followed." There are increasing concerns within the trade unions and the bourgeois parties that the strike movement will link up with on-going strikes of postal workers in Hauts-de-Seine, the Gironde and Rennes. Workers at the retailer Carrefour also struck last weekend against job cuts.
Comment: France is a mess by design. Striking 'back' seems to be the only option.
The offense committed by the Gazan protesters that has earned them a death sentence was coming too close to the Israeli containment fence that has turned the Gaza strip into the world's largest outdoor prison. President Donald Trump's chief Middle East negotiator David Greenblatt described the protest as "a hostile march on the Israel-Gaza border...inciting violence against Israel." And Nikki Haley at the U.N. has also used the U.S. veto to block any independent inquiry into the violence, demonstrating once again that the White House team is little more than Israel's echo chamber. America's enabling of the brutal reality that is today's Israel makes it fully complicit in the war crimes carried out against the helpless and hapless Palestinian people.
So where was the outrage in the American media about the massacre of civilians? Characteristically, Israel portrays itself as somehow a victim and the U.S. media, when it bothers to report about dead Palestinians at all, picks up on that line. The Jewish State is portrayed as always endangered and struggling to survive even though it is the nuclear armed regional superpower that is only threatened because of its own criminal behavior. And even when it commits what are indisputable war crimes like the use of lethal force against an unarmed civilian population, the Jewish Lobby and its media accomplices are quick to take up the victimhood refrain.
Comment: There is no reason for an armed superpower to open fire on peaceful civilians within their own territory. Yes, where is the outrage!!!
The number that condemns adultery and same-sex relationships has also significantly increased, according to data from a recent Levada Center sociological survey. According to experts, the change in public opinion attests to the strengthening of traditional family values, Pravoslavie.ru reports.
The nationwide survey held in late December 2017 showed that the majority of Russians (68%) condemn extramarital sexual relations, while only 50% condemned it in 1998. The 2017 number includes 77% of women and 57% of men.
Comment: It seems rather clear that the Russians hold more traditional values than Western "partners," who increasingly seem to be pulled in the direction of more liberal attitudes, particularly towards abortion and homosexuality.
See also:
- Large 'pro-life' movement held in 34 Russian cities, calls attention to the "dry statistics of abortion"
- Russia's Vatican envoy: Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches should work together to preserve Christian values
- Ridiculous! YouTube censors Christian videos because content describes and supports values of Russian Faith
- "European Values": How a George Soros-funded anti-Russian group enlisted me as "a foot-soldier in the fight against Putin"
- A Russian in search of Western values - none to be found!
- Russian news roundup: Nemtsov murder update, info wars and western values

Some commuters have been waiting for the few trains running; one woman fell on the tracks and was rescued by other passengers
Over 400 km of traffic jams were recorded before 8h00 across Île-de-France this morning, reported news source FranceInfo, as travellers tried to get around the train chaos. Authorities described the road conditions as "exceptional", and SNCF management said roads were expected to be "very disrupted" throughout the day.
Train stations across the country were packed, as some commuters had not given up on trying to get one of the few trains still running.
Around 12% of TGV were scheduled to leave as usual, along with 13% of Intercités. One in five TER services will run, including 6% of trains and 24% of buses. Over 90% of international Thalys trains will run, as will 75% of Eurostar services.
Comment: All's not well in France:
- Winter of Discontent in France: Protests, Endless Dark Skies, And Crazy New Laws
- French airline pilots plan Christmastime strike
- French prison guards on strike in 129 out of 188 French facilities - risk sanctions
- Chickenhawk Macron: 'France ready to strike chemical weapons sites in Syria'
- Assad tells Macron that France 'spearheaded support for terrorism' in Syria so 'they have no right to talk about peace'
- Macron and May might do deal where France promotes post-Brexit EU trade deal in exchange for UK accepting Calais and Paris migrants
- France gives kiss of death to free speech
- Emmanuel Macron faces first revolt as 100 party members resign over 'arrogant, undemocratic' ways

Palestinian protesters east of Khan Yunis, Gaza, on March 31, 2018.
In 1988 at the gates of Jerusalem's Old City, I watched Palestinian youths face down Israeli soldiers. The soldiers held rifles, while the Palestinians held stones. That asymmetry sent the Judaism of my childhood crashing headlong into my sense of justice. The stones demanded that I ask, "What could make a young man risk his life this way?"
My work with war-affected communities later brought me to the Gaza Strip. Living there from 2011 to 2015, I confronted Israel's power from the ground.
Under the new bill, titled Anti-Fake News 2018, "news, information, data, and reports which is or are wholly or partly false" are now illegal. The penalties do not only apply to the news organizations and websites where these stories originated, but they will also be extended to the average person who might share a story on social media without knowing whether or not it is true.
Initially, the government wanted to impose a 10-year penalty for those who are found guilty of these laws but were met with a massive public outcry, so they slightly lowered the maximum sentence to 6 years.
Malaysia's communications and multimedia minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Salleh Said Keruak said in a recent statement that this law was necessary in order to save democracy:

A foreign ISIS female member walks into a court room in Baghdad on February 20, 2018.
The source told AFP that the women, all accompanied by small children in the court, had surrendered to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters after having fled Tal Afar, one of the last ISIS bastions to fall to Iraqi security forces last year.
The women told the court they had entered the country to join their husbands fighting for ISIS in the "caliphate" which the group declared in 2014 in territory straddling Iraq and Syria.
Iraq in February condemned another 15 Turkish women to death on the same charge.












Comment: By coincidence or confluence or human manipulation, many aspects of our existence seem to be reversing at this point in time.